Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) is coming under fire from Republicans for allegedly having staffers pressure Colorado state officials to change its figures on the number of Obamacare cancellations in the state.

The Colorado Division of Insurance announced in November that insurance companies were cancelling policies for 250,000 state residents, a number that received news coverage nationally and was referenced by President Barack Obama.

New internal emails from the Colorado Division of Insurance, published by the conservative blog Complete Colorado, and also obtained by the Denver Post, show that staffers at the state Division of Insurance received inquiries from Udall’s team about updating or clarifying the numbers.

Udall and his staff contend that the 250,000 cancellation notices figure is incorrect because the vast majority — about 95 percent, or 237,500 — also included offers to renew those customers’ current plans. The senator has made these claims publicly as well.

“We need to move on this ASAP — or we’ll be forced to challenge the 249K number ourselves,” Udall legislative director Joe Britton wrote to Jo Donlin at the Division of Insurance. “It is wildly off or at least very misleading and reporters keep repeating it.”

Donlin emailed her colleagues saying she was standing by the numbers at that point.

“Sen. Udall says our numbers were wrong. They are not wrong. Cancellation notices affected 249,199 people,” she wrote. “They want to trash our numbers. I’m holding strong while we get more details.”

After Donlin tried to clarify the numbers to Britton, she emailed a colleague saying she received a “very hostile call from Sen. Udall’s deputy chief of staff.”

In an interview with The Denver Post, Udall, who is up for reelection in November, said it’s “really important to correct the record” on the 250,000 figure, calling it “only 4 percent of the story.”

“I put my team to work to find out whether those numbers would stand up to scrutiny,” he said.

Republicans are jumping on the issue, saying Udall and his team are working to manipulate the numbers so they don’t look as bad for Obamacare.

State Rep. Amy Stephens, one of the Republicans challenging Udall, said his and his staff’s attempts to update the numbers are “appalling and shameful.” State Sen. Owen Hill, another GOP candidate, wrote on his Facebook page that it “looks like Mark Udall tried to ‘cook the books.’” And a spokesman for GOP candidate Ken Buck’s campaign said Udall “seems to be more concerned about the political damage to himself than the damage caused to the 249,000 people who received cancellation notices as a consequence of his vote.”